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London Police Seize $22 Million Transferred by Russian Gang

London police seized $22 million
allegedly transferred into the country by a Russian organized crime gang
running Ponzi schemes and laundering money through the futures market.

The move came six weeks after a
43-year-old Russian broker was arrested on suspicion of fraud, abuse of
position and money laundering and released on bail. A British national was also
interviewed under caution and released. Neither person was identified by
police.

Detectives took possession of
four checks from a clearing firm in the Square Mile, London’s financial
district, after the firm closed the suspect’s five trading accounts. The
operation came two weeks after authorities seized bankers’ drafts worth 30
million pounds ($43 million) in South Wales and arrested a 58-year-old man on
suspicion of money laundering in the largest monetary seizure by a U.K. police
force.

A Russian oil firm, a Swiss
investment company, an investment firm in the British Virgin Islands and
another Russian company were a front for the Russian gang, according to police.
None of the businesses were identified.

The arrest was the result of an
investigation into suspicious trading on the futures market by the police’s
Money Laundering Unit and the Intercontinental Exchange Inc., which monitors
markets to identify suspicious trading activity.

"ICE monitors trading
activity around the clock using sophisticated market surveillance tools and
technology to detect market abuse," Kelly Loeffler, a spokeswoman for ICE,
said in an e-mailed statement. "We notified the authorities immediately
upon detecting suspicious trading activity and continue to support the City of
London Police in their operation."

Russian Mafia

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Russian Mafia "Russkaya Mafiya" particularly applies to the mafia of Russia. The mafia in other countries takes the name of that country, as in the Ukrainian mafia. Bratva (Братва; slang for "brotherhood", which applies to all gangs, including rivals) — often are names designating a range of organized crime syndicates originating in the former Soviet Union, Russia and the CIS. Since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, these groups have amassed considerable worldwide power and influence. They are active in virtually every part of Russian society. Russian criminals are internationally active in illegal oil trade, smuggling of weapons and nuclear material and money laundering. By the mid-1990s it was believed that "Don" Semion Mogilevich had become the "boss of all bosses" of most Russian Mafia syndicates in the world.[3][4][5]As mentioned above, the "Russian Mafia" is the original mafia that operates in Russia. However, organized crime groups such as Georgian crime syndicates are often frequently mistaken as Russian. An example of this is in Spain where 69 members of a Georgian crime ring were arrested, and it took the media days to realise that these criminals weren't actually Russian. Thus, the name of the Russian mafia defeats itself when used among other Post-Soviet crime groups. In Other cases, The "Russian Mafia" is not, in fact, a tight-knitted group of organized criminals with a strict hierarchy, most former soviet organized crime groups are in fact made up of corrupt Police forces, or a group of corrupt politicians on the highest levels with no interest of reform. Basically unlike any other ethnicity for some reason, any person who is affiliated with organized crime with a background from the Post Soviet Union, is considered "Russian Mafia" or "Red Mafia" defeating the whole point of what a mafia is. However in other cases there are also Big organizations of Russian criminals such as Mogilevich's crime group.In December 2009, Timur Lakhonin, the head of the Russian National Central Bureau of Interpol, stated: "Certainly, there is crime involving our former compatriots abroad, but there is no data suggesting that an organized structure of criminal groups comprising former Russians exists abroad".Organized crime has existed in Russia since the days of the Czars and Imperial Russia in the form of banditry and thievery. In the Soviet period Vory v zakone or "thieves in law" (understood as "bound by code") emerged. This class of criminals had to abide by certain rules in the prison system. One such rule was that cooperation with the authorities of any kind was forbidden. During World War II some prisoners made a deal with the government to join the armed forces in return for a reduced sentence, but upon their return to prison they were attacked and killed by inmates who remained loyal to the rules of the thieves. During the era when the Soviet economy took a downhill turn, the Vory would take control of the black market with the help of corrupt officials, supplying products such as electronics or extra food during the Brezhnev era which were hard to reach for the ordinary Soviet citizen.The real breakthrough for criminal organizations began when in 1988 Soviet Union legalised private entrepreneurship, allowing free trade. However the new law said nothing about regulations and security of the market economy. As crude markets started forming, the most notorious being the Rizhsky market next to the Rizhsky Railway Station in Moscow, former street hooligans, notably the Lyubery, turned to racket. As the Soviet Union headed for its collapse, so too did the economy and resulted in social decay. Desperate for money, many former government workers turned to crime, and others joined the former Soviet citizens who moved overseas, and the Russian Mafia became a natural extension of this trend. Former KGB agents, sportsmen and veterans of the Afghan and First and Second Chechen Wars, now finding themselves out of work but with experience in areas which could prove useful in crime, joined the increasing crime wave. Widespread corruption, poverty, and distrust of authorities only contributed to the rise of organized crime. Contract killings, bombings, and kidnappings reached an all-time high, with many gangland murders taking place and a substantial number remaining unsolved. By 1993 almost all banks in Russia were owned by the mafia, and 80% of businesses were paying protection money. In that year, 1400 people were murdered in Moscow, crime members killed businessmen who would not pay money to them, also reporters, politicians, bank owners and other opposed to them. The new criminal class of Russia took on a more businesslike approach to organized crime as the code-of-honor based Vory faded into extinction. Sam Vaknin claims that the KGB became involved with organized crime and the Russian mob became a long arm of the KGB. He also claims that the KGB often recruited and trained criminals, a task which was previously done by the Interior Ministry (MVD). "Former" and active agents joined international and domestic racketeering gangs, sometimes leading them Others claim that the secret service, limited in its own abilities, became a passive puppet master, seeking to exploit the growing criminal networks for its own uses.

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